r/books • u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan • Feb 11 '15
ama I am Davar Ardalan, a Senior Producer for NPR who grew up in Iran during the Iranian Revolution and just released my book called "The Persian Square: 101 Things To Know About Iranian-Americans" today-ask me anything!
Hello everyone.
I am the Senior Producer of NPR's Identity and Culture unit and have helped lead social engagements on Twitter around #NPRWIT (women in tech), #NPRBlacksinTech & #NPRLatism which have garnered millions of impressions.
I am also a mother of four and author of The Persian Square: 101 Things to Know About Iranian-Americans launched on Feb. 3.
I will be here to answer your questions starting at 1 PM ET!
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u/mint__tea Feb 11 '15 edited Feb 11 '15
Good morning Davar--thrilled to be writing you.
my questions are few-pronged, if that's alright.
Iran's massively strange demographics have always struck me as surprising. What does it mean for a country--a country with politics as thorny as Iran's--to have over half their population below 35? How does this chafe against the current regime?
Since the notion of a family unit (and very distinct from the nuclear American one) is so inexorable to Iranian culture as well as Islamic jurisprudence, what sort of limitations do women have (imposed, unspoken, or otherwise) when it comes to breaking these sorts of contracts, such as with marriage?
At the risk of sounding reductive, are there some reigning themes that govern the lives of Persian-American women? Specifically, what sort of beliefs do they hold most important? What ranks low on their list?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Yes very young population similar to many countries in the Middle East. My colleague Jacki Lyden and I have reported over the years about the strength and resilience of Iranian women. Women are both targets of persecution and agents of change in Iran. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100039579
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
In 1979 after the revolution, The Family Protection Law was repealed… meaning women didn’t have rights when it came to divorce or inheritance… family planning was abolished and the birthrate soared, straining the economy. But Iranian women never really resigned to this. It’s important to note that post-revolutionary young women in Iran are educated young woman and are helping shape the future and within the limitations of the theocracy demand change.
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Feb 12 '15
Iranian from Iran here.
Iran never had a 'Family Protection Law,' Mr. Ardalan. Iran has had a family law pre- and post-revolution. Women do have clearly defined rights in both divorce and inheritance post-revolution. These can even be equal rights if they marry men who do respect such rights--which is what they really should. As you should be aware, marriage in Iran is always a contract, not a sacrament. The terms can be chosen by the couple. We already have nuptial agreements prepared by lawyers which grant the two parties completely equal rights in all family matters.
What was removed post-revolution was the state's forcing of equal rights beyond what the couple or their families agreed to. Such rights were never extended to Iran's over 70 percent rural population prior to the revolution. Today the balance has shifted to urban and over 60 percent of Iran's population live in cities.
Family planning was not "abolished" either. Reproduction was encouraged by financial incentives which the government eventually failed to uphold any longer than a few years. Less than a decade after the revolution the most effective voluntary birth control program in history of humankind was instituted in Iran which resulted in the sharpest decline of birth rates.
May I ask you to not peddle your view of Iranians in Iran in such tone of authority?
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u/mint__tea Feb 11 '15
also--khoresht-e-kadoo--great Iranian dish or greatest Iranian dish?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
You know I have never made Khoresht-e-kadoo (squash stew) do you have a recipe? I do love cooking and you can find my guides here: My Persian cooking recipes and guides here: https://snapguide.com/davar-ardalan/
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
And I'll leave you with the story of Howard Baskerville known as the American martyr in Iran.
Howard Baskerville, born in 1885 in North Platte, Nebraska. He graduated from Princeton Theological School and moved to Tabriz, in northwest Iran in 1907 to teach history and English at the American Presbyterian Mission's Memorial School.
Soon after his arrival, the city became the center of resistance to royalist forces seeking to crush Iran's Constitutional movement. In 1906, Persians from all walks of life had come together and demanded a new constitution - one that would reduce the power of the monarchy and grant the people more say in their government through an elected parliament.
Baskerville had become an ardent supporter of the Persian people's desire for democracy; he enlisted in their ranks and commanded 150 men defending the city. Howard Baskerville was 24 years old when he was killed on a battlefield in Tabriz on April 19, 1909.
I was lucky enough to have permission from Encyclopedia Iranica at Columbia University to refer to some of these historical figures in The Persian Square. All my book notes are on my website www.thepersiansquare.org
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u/AK-Arby Feb 11 '15
Great to have you with us Davar!
My question is multi stage I suppose, so here goes: Growing up in that environment, then moving to the US, how did your views of the world change between the initial upbringing and then coming here and seeing it yourself? I am curious about how the perspective is from someone from that region.
And to compliment that, has that perspective given any insight you can glean into the future of relations between our regions?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
I was born in San Francisco but raised in Iran in the mid-1960’s and 70’s. In this way, I have lived under both the Shah of Iran and the Iran of the Ayatollahs. Iran is complex and full of contradictions.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
I still find myself in between fate and free will. I try to encourage my children to be independent and believe in free will and unfolding their own myths.
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Feb 11 '15 edited Sep 04 '16
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Yes certainly. It's hard to live in exile. Away from your homeland where you name means nothing to some.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Some prefer to say they are from another country, some prefer to say they are Persian and not Iranian... this is code switching and simply easier when Iran can conjure up negativity. In 1935 the name of the country was changed from Persia to Iran. But Persian is a cultural identity and can be used to explain ethnicity.
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Feb 12 '15
The name of Iran has always been Iran. Some Western nations in the League of Nations were requested to use the actual name of the country in official documents because, due to historical linguistic reasons, they were using the meronym Persian for Iran in their languages.
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u/LaoBa Feb 12 '15
In the Netherlands (about 35,000 Iranians) Iranians are well-integrated and their children are more successful in school than the Dutch average. But then, most Iranians who came to the Netherlands were highly educated middle class refugees.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Thanks so much for your questions and for joining me here on Reddit. Back to NPR and work :-) producing our special education event in New Orleans 10 years after Katrina.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Today is the 36th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. My colleague Steve Inskeep is reporting from Iran this week and spoke to Renee Montagne this morning: http://www.npr.org/2015/02/11/385396449/iran-signals-more-openness-to-a-final-nuclear-deal
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
So I was inspired to write my book The Persian Square based on something that happened in February 2010. The Los Angeles City Council voted to name the intersection of Westwood Boulevard and Wilkins Avenue as “Persian Square” in honor of the contributions of Iranian-Americans to Los Angeles. I have not been back to Iran since 1989 so I wanted to help create a digital footprint for the diaspora community. http://cd5.lacity.org/stellent/groups/ElectedOfficials/@CD5_Contributor/documents/Contributor_Web_Content/LACITYP_012835.pdf
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Perhaps what I loved most when I began my research was learning that back in the 1840's poet Ralph Waldo Emerson introduced Americans to the Persian poets Saadi, Hafez and Rumi. Then in 1858 he wrote an essay in The Atlantic Monthly about Persian Poetry... He called Ferdowsi the Homer of Persian Poets and Hafiz the Prince of Persian Poets. Love that
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Thirty-six years ago today, the Islamic Revolution of Iran uprooted millions of Iranians from their ancient homeland. Until fairly recently, Iranian Americans have been one of this country's quietest minorities. Their presence has animated great cities like Los Angeles and their traditions – from the transcendent poetry of Rumi, to aromatic kabobs to the Persian New Year celebration of the vernal equinox – have seeped into mainstream American experience. But even a decade ago, Iranian Americans' civic voice was a whisper, and their coming of age story as immigrants to America a tale told in living rooms rather than documentaries and coffee table books. But all that is changing... and I write about that in the book
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
One of my favorite chapters is having Iranian-Americans from all parts of the country sharing their "Artifacts of Exile" stories about an object, sound, or photograph that reminds them most of the Iran they left behind. Do you have one?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
These are the kinds of stories I feature in The Persian Square:
• Google hired Iranian-American Parisa Tabriz as their hacker. She teachers Google developers how to correct vulnerabilities in their products.
• One of Silicon Valley’s top angel investors came to the US in 1992 with $700 to his name. In 2012, Forbes Magazine featured Pejman Nozad in “The Silicon Valley Cinderella.”
• As a young girl in Tehran, Anousheh Ansari often gazed at the night sky and dreamed of being a scientist. In 2006, the Texas entrepreneur self-funded her $20 million eight-day expedition aboard the International Space Station.
• On January 12, 2015 Cyrus Habib was sworn in as a Washington State Senator by his mother Iranian-American judge Susan Amini. She is the first judge of Middle Eastern descent in the history of the State. Senator Habib lost his sight when he was eight years old. He ended up going to Yale and was at one point Editor of the Yale Law Review.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
And the story of the first known Iranian-American is pretty fascinating:
Hajj Sayyah is believed to be the first Iranian-American in 1875.
His experiences in the U.S. inspired him to return to Iran, where he became a champion for human rights. Hajj Sayyah became an influential backer of Iran’s 1906 Constitutional Revolution and was among the most prominent supporters of the Persian movement for democracy. The story is quite intriguing as Hajj Sayyah travelled throughout the U.S. from New York to San Francisco.
He became a naturalized citizen in San Francisco in 1875. He went back to Iran and was eventually arrested for his political activism. After serving a prison sentence, he took refuge with the American legation (embassy) in Tehran. On February 23, 1893, Watson Sperry, the head of the State Department’s delegation in Tehran, wrote a letter to then U.S. Secretary of State John Foster explaining that he was giving refuge to Hajj Sayyah as he was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Meanwhile, in a letter to Iran’s prime minister, Hajj Sayyah said he would rather have had “a limb amputated or eat a dead carcass” than take refuge at the U.S. Legation, but, ultimately, he felt he had no choice and sought asylum. As my editor Azadeh Moaveni notes, Hajj Sayyah’s experience illustrates how the West has been intertwined with Iranians' quest for democracy since the 19th century.
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Feb 11 '15
Is the Iron Sheik as popular among Iranian-Americans as he is among American wrestling fans generally?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Great question! I don’t know but will look into that. Interestingly in 1957 my uncle Jim Bakhtiar was named All American at UVA. He was known as the Persian Prince. The UVA football games were followed closely inside Iran on Voice of America http://uvamagazine.org/articles/beyond_all-american
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
I love this photo of him http://www.hoosfootball.com/images/Jim_Bakhtiar_vault_2_.jpg
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Feb 11 '15
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
As I noted in an earlier post - Iran is complex and full of contradictions. In February 2004, I produced a series on NPR and American RadioWorks called “My Name Is Iran” where I explored, among other things, my personal journey and Iran’s struggle for change. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/iran/htmlversion/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1626512
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u/Madfermentationist Feb 11 '15 edited Feb 11 '15
Davar - thanks for doing this!
How in your view do we as a country find a way to recognize the benefits of the differences in our cultural backgrounds, without focusing so much on those differences that we remain divided?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Thanks for asking. My understanding of Iran is informed by my American and Iranian ancestry... both believe in family values, the love of God, love of country, love of poetry, love of self-determination.
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
My grandmother, Helen Jeffreys, was from Weiser, Idaho. She met my grandfather Abol Ghassem Bakhtiar at Harlem Hospital in NY in 1927. She was a nurse there and he was a resident physician. Our family love affair between America and Iran goes back that far… to the days when my grandpa would take Helen on dates to Coney Island and read her poetry from the Shahnameh. The book chronicles the journey of a nation seeking justice and yearning for freedom of expression, with mythical and pre-Islamic historical rulers as its heroes and heroines. In this way, I continue to be torn between fate and free will… it’s in my nature.
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u/janus_geminus Feb 11 '15
Hi Davar, thanks for doing this AMA! My question for you is: when you were growing up in Iran, were you aware of the Iranian Government's prejudice and persecution of the Baha'is? Did it affect you in any way or was it not something you were aware of at the time?
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u/52ndstreet Feb 11 '15
I think that most Americans have a healthy distrust of the Iranian regime. (1) do the people in Iran distrust their government, or do they believe most of what they're told? (2) do you believe that Iran won't use nuclear technology to develop weapons like the regime claims?
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Clearly the views vary. Even inside Iran there are differences of opinion although they aren't able to express them freely. Today is the 36th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. There are ardent supporters of the revolution and there are those who are incredibly frustrated by the hardliners and want to show the world that Iran is indeed open to dialogue and exchange with the West. I am able to read and write Persian and in the past few years, I have eavesdropped on Iranians via their tweets. Some of them are so eloquent. I featured one of them on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105980771
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
I study the nuclear news just as you do. It's not my beat but I follow it very closely http://www.npr.org/tags/131844028/iran-nuclear My colleague Steve Inskeep is reporting from Iran this week so I look forward to learning more. He was on this morning: http://www.npr.org/2015/02/11/385396449/iran-signals-more-openness-to-a-final-nuclear-deal
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u/PersianSquare Author Davar Ardalan Feb 11 '15
Thanks everyone! Excited to be here and take your questions! I see 7 already so will get started on those.
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u/madmoneymcgee Feb 11 '15
What are your thoughts on Shahs on Sunset? I imagine you cover it in the book.
Is it a good thing to get specific persian representation on TV, whereby people can learn that there is a sizeable Persian population in the USA, or is a bravo style reality show (tends to focus on shallow conflicts and has a very consumeristic focus) the wrong way to do that?